The hitpoint system is great for people who want more role-play and less roll-play. The system was meant to go along with imagination and spontenaity. Thats said, my next points, which is actually an idea.
What if each players character was actually the fort. Weird? Let me illustrate my idea and this is something I have been thinking about for years, though not exactly related to DF.
My original concept was for a regular sized group of players, but instead of each person playing a character or two, they actually played a whole adventuring party. Each character of the party would actually be a streamlined set of traits and skills/abilities. The actual full set of abilities would be comprised from the party as a whole. The player would be challenged to form up the best party for particular purposes, or be forced to get by with what they have. For example, you could go for the well balanced group, or for the specialized group such as a pack of rogues or a coterie of wizards.
Now, each player sitting at the table would engage in bigger picture adventures. Maybe the Kings guard must escort the wizards to the front lines of the war. Perhaps they enlist a pack of rogues as scouts. Along the way an adventuring party, down on their luck from their last dungeon stomp, decides to earn some coin fighting for the king.
Now how does this apply to DF? Well in a live game it would be best to have everyone on the same side. So different squads in the fort for example. Maybe one player plays the nobles (the red shirts!). Whatever makes sense.
In a forum or IRC based game, maybe each player could play their own fort. Some would be cooperative, others would not. Politics ensue. Many tantrums will be had. Trade and such would be fun too i guess.
And yes, i say create a little script to handle the combat rolls, locations and effects. Log results in a spreadhseet, a record for each dorf. Maybe have a script for a dorf generator also, log those when they are born or imigrate.
The fun part is the role-play. Otherwise we can just load up DF.